


soon, i'll have to go

by JenelleLucia



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:33:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28199211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenelleLucia/pseuds/JenelleLucia
Summary: ...i'll never see her grow. // a glimpse into liprica’s final days with celica, with mentions of conrad. written for the fe writers' zine
Relationships: Anthiese | Celica & Liprica
Kudos: 2





	soon, i'll have to go

A cry. 

That is the first thing that Liprica hears when she finally lifts her head. The doctors surrounding her clean her, tell her that the baby is a healthy, beautiful little girl with a head full of red hair, and if there’s anything that she cannot bring herself to regret it’s this. She holds her arms out and asks to see her child, and when she does she holds her close to her chest. Liprica can’t think of anything else but the baby in her arms. 

(For the moment, anyway.) 

Liprica admires her, takes in all of her features. The doctors were right; what makes her daughter stand out in the room is her full head of red hair. Many of Lima’s other children had the same features, or something or other -- the red hair was only the trademark, she supposes. She takes in the way that she sleeps, so well and snuggled up close to her chest. She takes in her little hands, and just beneath the little blankets, her little toes. 

Liprica glances over at one of her hands, and she swallows. She lifts her daughter’s head closer to her and kisses it gently before tucking it back into the blankets she’s swaddled in. 

. 

As much as she tries to, Liprica stays away from the court. She's content with staying in her quarters, isolated from Lima's other brides. They hold her at arms’ length, and every now and then one or two of them will compliment her child.  _ She’s beautiful _ , some will say. Others only look at her; not many of the other children get too close to her, or some of their mothers will pull them away from her. One does. 

“Here.” With a free hand, Liprica pats the seat next to her. Conrad struggles for a bit to get up, and after a moment she holds her hand out to him. He takes her hand and uses it to help climb up onto the loveseat in her room, and after adjusting his position -- sit up straighter, hold your hands and your arms out like this, the like -- she tells him to wait a moment. 

Liprica returns to him about a moment later, holding her daughter in her arms. It's practiced, really; Conrad's careful when he takes the bundle into his arms and she helps him adjust his hold on her once more. 

“This is your sister,” she tells him, watching him as his eyes grow wide and a smile erupts onto his face. She had been the only one to ever see him smile; just like her and now her daughter, he too had been held at arms’ length from the other brides and the other children. “Protect her. you two have to look out for each other.”    
And Conrad nods, all too happy at the thought of finally having a sibling to spend time with.

“I promise!” Conrad sits up straighter. “I’m going to look out for her!” 

His declaration is one that makes Liprica happy, and she offers him a soft smile and a nod. Their expressions change into that of surprise, however, when the baby in Conrad’s arms sniffles and cries. She's about to offer to take the baby from him and let her soothe her herself when Conrad only smiles down at her and gently pats her side. 

“It’s okay!” he’s talking to the baby now, and Liprica’s surprised expression reverts back to the small smile. “It’s okay, I’m going to protect you! You won’t have any reason to cry, and we’ll always play together, don’t worry!” 

Liprica watches Conrad soothe the baby and talk to her before it’s time for him to go, and when he asks to return the next day to see her again, she nods and agrees. She returns to her baby after that, and when she looks out the window, it’s nightfall. It’s time to put her to bed. 

. 

One of the things that Liprica hates most about court is being in it. She was the one who accompanies Lima to court this time, and she watches as he listens to the demands his people make. He stares on, and when she takes in his expression it’s as if whatever the people say go in one ear and out the other. She doesn’t dare to intervene, as the last time that she had done so   
(Well, she doesn’t think of the punishments that her husband had enacted on her. 

_ Husband _ , she says the word so loosely. It’s an unwanted word.) 

It’s hours before she’s finally dismissed from court, especially when the last subject is set to leave. Lima follows her, of course. He turns in another direction from hers when she turns down corridors and halls to get to her room. When she opens the door as quietly as she can the soft creaking seems to alert her daughter of her presence, and she hears a cry hit the air. She removes her sandals and heads to her side almost immediately. 

“I’m here,” she whispers, lifting her daughter and holding her close to her chest. The sniffles and the whimpers begin to subside. As she settles, so does her mother. Liprica adjusts her position and sits back on her bed, cradling her daughter close to her chest and she rubs at her arms, side… whatever she can feel beneath the blankets that she’s swaddled in. 

“I don’t like being away from you for periods such as that,” she whispers to her, watching as her daughter is lulled back to sleep. She continues speaking to her. She tells her that her older brother is coming to visit again, how she shudders to think of the day that her father would want to see her and hold her. She can’t reassure her that that won’t happen, but also, her daughter is too young to understand those types of things. 

“That’s right. I’ve gone these past few days without giving you a name, yes?” Liprica whispers. It’s left her mind for the time being, but she leans over to kiss her daughter’s head. “I hope you will forgive me. I don’t have anything in mind quite yet… but I will find something, I promise.” 

She kisses her daughter’s head once more, reaching over to run her fingers through her hair. 

“Sleep now.” 

. 

It's a little after the baby’s christening that she finds that there’s something not right.

It starts with something that’s akin to a headache -- a more severe one. She has had a hard time sleeping at night as of recently, and the times that she spends awake is purely for tending to her daughter. It's another night of headaches, and when her baby cries for her she waits it out. Maybe it’s not important right now, Liprica wants to think; maybe the baby’s cries are for something else, but she does not stop crying.

She waits until she’s silent, and when she is she tends to her. She fights against the feeling of her head throbbing, the need to curl up and hold her head and wait for it to subside but she lifts her baby into her arms and cradles her close and holds her tight. She reassures her that she’s here, and that she’s okay, and to go back to sleep. The baby does, thankfully so. 

Liprica places her back into her crib after kissing her goodnight, and after deeming it alright to leave her once more she heads back to her own bed. The headaches have subsided, only for the moment. when she returns to bed, the headaches return with it. Each throb of her head is worse than the last, and painful to the point that she takes a basin from the side of her bed and she throws up into it. 

(Anything, she thinks, to soothe the pain that she feels from the headaches that consume her.) 

She takes a match from close by her bed, carefully lighting the candle close to her side and she lights it, lifting it to inspect the basin of the contents that she had thrown up. It’s inevitable, she finds, after everything that she’s been subject to, that she finds blood within the contents of what she had thrown up. 

. 

Liprica is deteriorating, she hears the other brides say. Liprica is undesirable now, to Lima. That doesn’t stop Conrad from visiting her once more. He comes by again, in the middle of the day and he greets her with a smile. She offers him a snack before going to get her daughter, and she thanks him for watching her today. 

“It’s my pleasure, Lady Liprica!” When Conrad smiles at her, she smiles back and ruffles his hair before helping him adjust his seating once more. She tells him to wait for a moment and leaves for not but a second to get her daughter. She returns with her daughter in her arms; just like before she helps his positioning now that the baby is in his arms, and she watches as he talks to her once more -- introduces himself to the baby, and that’s when he thinks about it. 

“Lady Liprica,” he turns to her, every now and then glancing down at the baby. “Does she not have a name?” 

“No,” Liprica shakes her head, offering the boy a sheepish smile. “It slipped my mind, to be honest. Also, I… don’t think that I had anything in mind for her name just yet.” 

After all, her baby was the most pleasant surprise -- but even pleasant surprises had to be called something. 

“I see!” Conrad seems to understand that, and Liprica smiles and ruffles at his hair. “I hope she has a name soon. She deserves a name befitting of a princess! that’s what she is, after all!” 

“Yes,” Liprica agrees with a whisper, hand moving from Conrad's head to her daughter’s to give him extra support. “She is a princess, and she shall have a name befitting as such.” 

Her head throbs again, and when Conrad notices the way that her expression contorts into one of pain, she promises him that it’s nothing to worry about. 

“Spend time with your sister,” she tells him, doing her best to wave off the pain and reassure him. “I’ll be alright.” 

. 

As dawn breaks, Lady Liprica finds that she does not have the energy at the moment to leave her bed. She has time; she can lay there for a little bit. 

She turns to her side, where her baby rests, and she stares down at her. She watches as her baby sleeps peacefully, breathing soft and slow and she reaches up to run her fingers through her hair. Her eyes run over her daughter’s head full of soft red hair, tiny hands, tiny feet, and when she kicks slightly in her sleep it makes her laugh. 

Liprica’s gaze trails back up to her daughter’s hand, carefully turning over her right palm to see that what she had seen at her daughter’s birth … was really what she thought it was. She swallows slightly, then lowering her head back onto her pillow and she gently strokes at her daughter’s palm. 

(Safe to say, she doesn’t quite like what she sees then.) 

“I will not let you stand before her,” she whispers, watching as her daughter almost instinctively turns to curl against her. Liprica gently adjusts her daughter to lay onto her stomach, but even so she can see the outlines of the brand of Mila on her palm -- faint, but ever so visible -- and she sighs softly. “I will not let what happened to me happen to you. I will not let anyone make that mistake.” 

When Liprica thinks about it, it was hardly a mistake. She had been taken from her, taken from Lady Mila, plain and simple. She uses the word  _ husband  _ so loosely; Lima is anything but. Those thoughts don’t distract her, though, when she looks down at her daughter sleeping there. 

_ She won’t remember any of this _ . 

“I won’t leave you alone,” she whispers, nestling her head against hers. Her baby does nothing, but she can hear her soft breathing. She supposes this was a rather peaceful sight to see, her daughter sleeping so well and so soundlessly. Liprica lifts her head, leaning over to press a kiss to her daughter’s cheek before laying it back down on her pillow. 

“Sleep now, Anthiese,” she whispers, and she closes her eyes. 

. 

When the handmaidens come to see Liprica later that day, the first thing they are greeted with is a baby’s cry.

**Author's Note:**

> HI THIS WAS SO LONG OVERDUE, but i'm so happy to have written this piece for the fe writers' zine! thanks for having me, and thanks so much for enjoying my work !! 
> 
> come follow me on twitter: @jenellexlucia


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